European managers look to 'Rate My Hospital'

The award-winning 'Rate My Hospital' operated by Irishhealth.com has attracted the attention of the European Association of Hospital Managers. A two-page feature article on the website, under the heading 'Competition' focuses on how 'Rate My Hospital' has ushered in a new era of accountability into the Irish health system, giving patients, for the first time, a genuine input and real-time feedback into how the taxpayer-funded system is operated.

The Editors of 'E-Hospital' commissioned Irishhealth.com publisher, John Gibbons to write the report on how 'Rate My Hospital' was functioning. "In a system with no culture of transparency or accountability, resistance, even hostility to 'Rate My Hospital'  was to be expected", wrote Gibbons. "We knew however that the service was starting to make a serious difference when, in January 2007 – just four months after its launch, the HSE rushed out a facility called ‘Your service – your say’, purporting to invite the public to tell them directly about their hospital experience.

"That same month, the HSE appointed a director of consumer affairs and also announced plans to train hundreds of complaints officers for individual hospitals. It almost beggars belief that this hadn’t been done prior to this,", he added.

Contrary to the PR spin from the HSE, ‘Rate My Hospital’ "was never intended to be a stick with which to beat the Irish health system", Gibbons pointed out. "All comments are manually screened to block unfair or slanderous statements. Individuals are entitled to their good name. We also have a separate channel with thousands of postings which allows people to single out staff for praise".

'Rate My Hospital' received international recognition in 2007, in the UN-sponsored World Summit Awards in Venice – the only Irish healthcare project ever to receive such an accolade. ‘Rate My Hospital’ was one of 40 winners globally, selected from some 24,000 projects the judging panel reviewed. The service has to date received almost 17,000 fully-completed 23 part patient questionnaires.

‘Rate My Hospital’ is operated by MedMedia Group, a wholly owned Irish healthcare publishing organisation which also runs the successful website, Irishhealth.com, which today has around 135,000 registered members.

To have your say on a recent hospital experience, log on to 'Rate My Hospital'.

[Posted: Thu 13/08/2009]